Retail stores could soon use drones to hunt thieves

As if we were not already sufficiently followed, shopping centers and stores in the United States could soon deploy drones to catch shopping thieves.

The controversial surveillance company Flock Safety, which provides drones and other invasive police services, announced Thursday that it now offers its drones to private security companies.

The use of drones in the police is increasing, and this decision is likely that private companies will soon adopt the same technology. But as drones normalize for public and private security, privacy defenders warn that they could bring the United States closer to a state of surveillance.

“Security leaders are invited to protect more with less footprints, tighter budgets and real personnel constraints,” said Rahul Sidhu, Vice-President of Flock Safety Aviation, in a press release.

The company claims that each drone quay can cover about a radius of 3.5 miles with flight times up to 45 minutes, providing a quick response for warehouses, railway courses, hospitals, ports, shopping centers and business centers.

In his press release, Flock Safety presented his drones specifically in retail stores, arguing that organized retail crime remains high. He cited an industry report showing that retailers experienced a 93% increase in display flight incidents in 2024, and said that the rapidly drone response could help reduce related costs over time. Of course, it should be noted that the claims of the retailers of a display flight epidemic were largely demystified in 2024, but that did not prevent the police from making a commercial trip for new toys.

Keith Kauffman, director of the Flock Dones program, told MIT Technology Review how drones could work in practice.

When the security team of a store identifies the display thieves leaving the scene, it can activate the drone, which is anchored on the roof. Equipped with videos and thermal cameras, the drone can follow thieves who escape on foot or in a vehicle. His video stream can then be sent to the company’s security team and transmitted directly to the local police.

Flock technology is already used in many police services. This week, his license plate cameras were credited for grabbing a murder suspect in El Paso and located a teenager who disappeared in Boulder, Colorado.

But not everyone is delighted with business technology. The city of Evanston, Illinois, ordered the security of herds this week to uninstall 18 readers of license plates after the Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias discovered that Flock had given us access to customs and borders to the data of readers. And in August, the Congress launched an investigation into what a member described the “role of flock in the license to practice invasive surveillance practices which threaten the privacy, security and civil freedoms of women, immigrants and other vulnerable Americans”.

The main analyst of ACLU policies, Jay Stanley, has warned in recent years that the growing use of drones in the police and private security requires strict railing, including limits on when and where drones can be used and how video and other sensor data are managed.

“We do not want to end up in a nightmare scenario where drones are used for mass surveillance and the experience of buzzing police flight cameras becomes a routine in the daily life of people,” Stanley wrote in a recent blog article.